Two new accounts of the al Qaeda assault on Camp Gannon in Husaybah appear in USA Today and the Washington Post. By both accounts, Marine Lance Corporal Joshua Butler is due to receive some medals for his heroism in the fight. He repeatedly exposing himself to fire, and destroyed two of the suicide vehicles – a dump truck and a fire truck – while under fire from about thirty dismounted terrorists. Corporal Anthony Fink and First Sgt. Don Brazeal also acted bravely when destroying an enemy position, possibly killing up to 11 terrorists.

Marines responded to the attack by deploying their “Rapid Reaction” force and calling in air assets; “The unit summoned F-18 fighter jets and Cobra helicopter gunships; the Cobras fired machine guns and Hellfire missiles at what an after-action report described as vehicles transporting weapons.” Al Qaeda cannot maintain the initiative against such flexibility and firepower, and were forced to break contact, suffering heavy casualties while failing to achieve their objective. It is no wonder the communiqu

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.

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The Washington Post has the following front page story about the failed attack on a Marine base near the border with Syria. The Grim Reaper, Riding a Firetruck in Iraq (washingtonpost.com) U.S. commanders said they interpreted the attack here as…

Lacking time to create an analytical post, here’s a rundown of events noticed today, the second day in a slow international news week: BizBlogger: Richie Rich writes what I wanted to about the Oklahoma City Bombing of 1995 but didn’t…

What I had not begun to realize until recently is just how ‘broken’ the Iraqi society/economy was prior to Operation Iraqi
Freedom. The April 19 entry for Iraq in StrategyPage, http://www.strategypage.com//fyeo/qndguide/default.asp?target=IRAQ.HTM, makes the point that “during Saddam’s rule, the government controlled little beyond the main roads into Syria and Jordan, and some of the towns. But not all of the towns. That much has not changed, until now. For the last two years, coalition commandoes have ranged over the area, controlling the ground they stood on, but leaving the usual chaos in their wake. Smuggling gangs rule this part of Iraq, and since 2003, terrorists have set up shop as well. The tribes along the border controlled the smuggling, and have not responded well to government attempts to shut down the movement of weapons and terrorists from Syria.”
The mission of the Coalition Forces now has become to bring law and order for the first time ever to this area so a functioning economy can follow.

Hi GDubya,
I haven’t put much time into this issue. I have not read Jayna Davis’ book, but have heard her and Laurie Mylroie on the radio and have read some articles as well. I am inclined the believe this is not extremists conspiracy theories, and some very credibile people have agreed with their work. I loath to reflexively place the blame on Reno/Clinton, this has always seemed an FBI issue with me, but I may be wrong.

In an article titled “Insurgents Flourish in Iraq’s Wild West”, the Los Angeles Times offers a bleak assessment of the availability of Coalition and Iraqi forces in the Anbar province. While the Marines involved in…